


Coffeestuck

by Fzgoi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Birthday Party, Coffeeshop AU, I'm a bit at a loss as to what else to tag, M/M, Meet-Cute, More tags on the way probably, Number-Exchanging, barista!Dirk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28767885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fzgoi/pseuds/Fzgoi
Summary: Dirk is a barista in a small college town.Jake is a jogger and fellow student in said college town.They meet one faithful day when Jake stops by to get a cup of coffee and a muffin, and they both assume they'll never meet again, lest Jake stops by for coffee again.
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: DirkJake Big Bang 2k21





	Coffeestuck

If there is one thing that I am pretty damn certain I had mastered- from the basics to the more difficult aspects- it’s reading people. I’m really, really fucking good at figuring out if something is bothering someone; if someone is in a good mood; if someone is trying hard to mask their emotions. And I used this fantastically well-mastered ability to figure out how to talk to people, and how to interact around people. Not so much in the way of “Should I ask this person if they’re okay and see if they wanna cry on my shoulder about how much they miss their best friend or tell me their sob story about how their boyfriend cheated on them a week before they were supposed to get married?”, but more so in the sense of “Should I sit beside this person or are things gonna be weird? Should I address this person with a weird faux-peppy tone so they don’t think I’m being an ass? Should I just walk the fuck past this person as fast as possible?”

However, if there is one thing that I am, decidedly, disastrously terrible at, it’s approaching my friends, confronting them, talking to them about pretty much anything involving deep emotions and feelings. For instance, it’s pretty damn clear that Jane is stressed- in all honesty, anyone could figure that much out from the way she’s obsessively biting her nails and the skin on the tips of her fingers, anxiously redoing her hair and glancing at the coffeeshop clock on the wall adjacent to the counter near-obsessively. But managing to ask her what exactly is going on in her head? That is a nearly impossible feat for me to achieve.

Luckily, Feferi Peixes, a baker at the coffee shop, is incredible at approaching people. She came up to hand the most recent order- a small black coffee- to me so I could give it to the customer at the pickup part of the counter, and then she rubbed Jane’s shoulder and pulled her over to the back of the shop. Is she leaving me at the counter to fend for myself? Yes. Does this mean that I have to take all the orders that will come in until Jane can come back up to the counter? Also yes. However, there’s very, very little foot traffic through here right now, given that it’s 10:17 A.M. and a large majority of the people in this small college town are at a class right now. At about 2:00 P.M. or so, though, there’ll be a ton of foot traffic through here. I do not work a shift at 2:00 though, so that’s not really of any concern to me.

I’m shaken out of my stupor when the bell on the front door rings, and into the shop walks a boy, about my age, with dark skin and hair that reminds me of a dark cloud. He’s wearing a pair of red shorts that hit his thighs at best, jogging up to the counter with a kind smile on his face and sweat on his brow.

There’s a beat of awkwardness as he gets up to the counter.

If there’s another thing that I’m not very good at, it’s pulling my eyes away from the freckles spattered over his nose and up to his eyes, making myself say something to him.

“Uh, hi,” I start, which is a world-class opener. “I’m Dirk, how can I help you today?” There’s a hint of softness in my voice that I almost don’t recognize in this setting since it’s reserved almost exclusively for my friends.

“Hi, Dirk! Can I get a poppyseed muffin and a caramel latte?” Similarly, there’s friendliness in his voice that makes me feel like I’ve known him for longer than seventy-five seconds.

“Sure thing. Can I get a name for that order?” I can tell that I’m smiling ever-so-slightly, which is also entirely uncommon since I’m at work.

“Jake.”

“Alright Jake, that’ll be 7.58, your drink’ll be ready in just a few.”

He pays the exact amount, counting out the nickel and three pennies he uses, which I usually find no less than aggravating, but when he does it I almost find it endearing, because although it takes extra time, it’s change I don’t have to calculate. After he drops the coins in my hand and hands me the cash, I head back into the kitchen, where I start brewing the coffee.

If it weren’t for the fact that I’m completely socially inept and suck ass at making small talk with anyone, let alone with boys who are undeniably charismatic and very, very cute, I’d consider flirting as I hand him his drink and asking for his number. Well, I guess the consideration part happens regardless of my ineptitude. However, I’m well aware that this is another feat I’m pretty much incapable of, so I don’t let it go past the consideration phase. I walk up to the counter again, grabbing a muffin out of the case, and am about to place both the drink and the muffin on the counter, but he rushes up to grab both from my hands, and before I can recover from the slight brushing of his hands against mine, he’s out the door and I think he throws out the muffin wrapper right outside the shop.

Jane comes back up to the counter a moment later, glancing at the clock. I follow her gaze, noting that it’s 10:20 now, and only 25 minutes ‘til my class starts.

“So. What was that all about?” I ask, the much less-stressed look on Jane’s face making it worlds easier to talk to her about what was bothering her before.

“Oh, uh, nothing too bad now. Fef talked me down, but I was worried about the cake I ordered for my party tonight. It’s supposed to get to my dorm in thirty minutes, but I’m just worried it’ll get there way sooner and somebody’ll take it off me and Rox’s doorstep or something. You know that’s a thing that happens, right, where people will just steal stuff off your doorstep?”

Jane is an incredibly accomplished baker, but, understandably, she wouldn’t have made her cake for her birthday party.

“Ah, that’s an understandable worry,” After I say this she gives me an ever-so-slightly worried look and I realize that I should probably not be saying she should worry about her cake. “But it’s not super likely that anything’ll happen to it, even if the cake does get there before you get back. After all, Roxy is still at your apartment, right? I’m sure they’ll get the cake, Jane, or else you’ll get to the apartment before the delivery guy does.”

Her face only lightens up a little bit. “Yeah, no, I know, that’s what Feferi said too, but…”

I cut her off and stop her from continuing down this worry-shaped rabbit hole. “D’you wanna take the rest of your shift off? I don’t mind holding down the counter for the next ten minutes, and Tavros and Gamzee get here in five minutes anyway.”

She nods at me, and when I wave her off she scurries back to the rack where we hang our bags and grabs her purse before running out the door, taking off her apron as she goes. The next seven minutes are radically uneventful, and I end up sitting in the back and letting Tavros and Gamzee watch the door while the last three minutes of my shift go by.

At exactly 10:30, the end of my shift, my watch beeps, alerting me to get off my phone. I head for the door, clocking out and grabbing my bag. I take off my apron, slowly folding it up and putting it in my bag, and then I pick up my pace from a slow walk to a power walk, that way I can be sure to get to my class before it starts in ten minutes. If I were more athletically inclined, I’m sure I could run to my class and get there even faster, but I’m not, so I don’t entertain the thought for very long. As I’m walking, though, every jogger who goes past me reminds me of Jake from earlier today, with his practically-booty-shorts and a plain black tank top, and hopefully a real shirt and some deodorant in his bag.

None of my classes are too incredibly captivating- sure, they’re important, and I need to make sure that I’m paying enough attention to take ample notes, but it’s hardly like the teachers are ensuring that we pay attention and hang on to every word they say, so my mind often ends up wandering. And, on a day where a cute boy walked into the shop during my shift, I have ample distraction to let my mind wander to.

Chances are, though, I won’t see him again. It was a chance encounter and I mean, sure, it was nice to get to meet someone who checks off several of my boxes, so I at least know there’s someone out there who I’m physically attracted to. But if you look any deeper than just the surface level of things, it’s pretty plain to see that I still have approximately zero ideas as to whether or not I’d be attracted to him after a conversation with him, not to mention that I’ve been working pretty much the same shift at the shop for the past five weeks and I’ve never seen him, so really it’s not very likely that he makes a habit of coming in.

My classes don’t end until 5:00 P.M., but it’s April, so it’s fine for me to be getting back to my apartment at 5:45. I say “my” apartment, but I only pay a third of the rent. I’m staying with my brother and his boyfriend since he moved here last year to stick around his friends. He doesn’t attend college, but he scored an apartment pretty close to it. 

Dave is a pretty chill guy. We weren’t close growing up- we have different moms, and while he was raised by our dad, neither of them knew I existed until my mom up and disappeared when I was in tenth grade. We look alike, though- I’m sure if we’d met at a grocery store or something there would’ve been a click like you expect to happen in movies like Parent Trap, and we would’ve immediately realized we were brothers. The only major difference between us is our eyes and the fact that he’s way taller than I am.

Karkat, on the other hand… “Chill” is not a word I’d use to describe him in any lifetime. He’s a pretty tall Mexican dude who got beefy about seven months ago, according to Dave. He stares at you with this glare that makes you feel like he’s about to get into a screaming match with you, but I’ve never heard him raise his voice except to the coffee maker one morning a few weeks ago.

As I walk into our apartment, I nod at Karkat and then head to my room to get ready for Jane’s party thing. Dave is already sitting on the couch playing a video game in clothes that look like he pulled them out of his closet to go to the grocery store on Easter weekend. Karkat is decidedly worse, wearing a pair of jeans that have sour cream stains on them from yesterday’s dinner and an obscure band shirt.

Once my door is closed, I toss my shirt to the side, letting it fall beside my bed somewhere, and then walk toward the small closet with just barely enough space for my nicer shirts. I grab a simple white sweater off the rack, tossing it on my bed, and then go dig through my nightstand.

A few minutes later, I’m staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, realizing that my sweater is torn the fuck up on the sleeves. Admittedly, normally I do not give a shit about what my friends see me in, but it’s Jane’s birthday party and I know she’s not going to be enthralled with Dave or Karkat for the shape of their outfits. Plus, if she decides to post pictures or something, I’m not tryin’ to show off my horribly-worn sweater to her 17k followers.

“Dirk! Are you almost done in there, man? We gotta go or we’re gonna be late.” Dave knocks against the door and I can hear a note of mild urgency in his voice.

“You guys head on over, I’ll catch up with you!” I holler back through the door, picking at my shirt.

I wait ‘til I hear the front door close, and then I sigh and pull off the sweater. I catch my eye in the mirror and stick my tongue out at myself. My hair’s been kept in dreadlocks for a while now, which I usually keep up in a rubber band like a ponytail, the ends of my hair hitting just above the bottom of my neck. It’s dark brown naturally, but I dyed it a while ago. Now it’s almost entirely a light yellow color that the box said was orange. It’s not like orange is my ideal dream color, or anything, I just didn’t know what the fuck else to dye it and I wanted to dye it to something else.

Speaking of orange... 

I half-run out of the bathroom and back to my room, tossing the sweater with my jeans and shirt from earlier.

When I knock on the door, I’m greeted with a very comforting Roxy Hug, with them wrapping their arms around me and squeezing like we’ve not seen each other in seven months and I just showed up for Christmas.

“Rox’, we just saw each other last week. Chill.” I say as they let go of me, smiling softly.

“I’m just happy to see you!!! It feels like we haven’t talked in a minute!” Roxy steps back, looking me up and down and then doing a performative dog whistle. “And look at you! I think you’re dressed fancier than Jane is!”

I doubt that, but okay.

I smile sheepishly and rub the back of my neck, and then step further inside their apartment so Roxy can shut the door. There are only eight people on the seats in front of us, and three of them I can make out pretty easily. Dave and Karkat are sitting squished onto one cushion, and Rose is sitting in between the corner seat and Dave. Next to Rose, sitting on the corner cushion of the couch is a woman who I can only presume to be Kanaya, the oft-talked-about girlfriend of Rose. Roxy is pretty sure they’re gonna get married soon. Aside from that, it’s a little hard to figure out who’s who. I’m pretty sure that sitting beside Kanaya is June, Dave’s best friend. Then, sitting on chairs in front of us is a woman in a labcoat with cornrows, and another person with white, bob-length hair. I’m pretty sure I vaguely recognize the former as being Jade, and the latter is Calliope, though I think they’re wearing a different wig tonight.

They’ve got alopecia and, unlike their brother, they often wear wigs.

The last person I don’t think I recognize. I can see an afro over the cushions, but otherwise, I don’t see any defining characteristics. Until he turns around and I’m shocked to see the same brown eyes I was looking at this morning with a ring of green around the edges. I’m pretty sure people are still talking, but I can’t tell since I’m too focused on the deafening silence between Jake and me.

It’s not like anything is technically awkward about the situation, it’s just a little weird that we happen to both know Jane.

“...Golly, Dirk, I didn’t know you knew Jane!” He speaks first, smiling at me warmly.

To say the least, I was not expecting his vocabulary to include the word “golly”.

“Hey! I didn’t realize you’d be here either!” I say, still a little shocked.

I guess it would follow that if he’s a friend of Jane’s and he came by while Jane was in the back, I wouldn’t have realized they were friends. And as such it follows that he wouldn’t have realized that I’m one of her friends since she was in the back.

I head around to the other side of the couch, sitting on an ottoman Jane had beside the table. I look him up and down quickly, noting that he’s not wearing what he was earlier, which is a relief for multiple reasons. Firstly, if you’re wearing a tank top and booty shorts to your friend’s birthday party, I’m concerned about how much effort you’re putting in. Second, that would have made this conversation slightly more difficult.

It’s at least a little easy to follow a casual conversation when the other participant is wearing a green polo and cargo shorts.

“You’re dressed like you’re going to a first date, my friend!” Jake beams at me and gestures to my outfit, which admittedly is feeling a bit like overkill right now.

Here I am, wearing a black button-up dress shirt tucked into black jeans, surrounded by people in sweatpants, baggy t-shirts, and hoodies. The only people in the living room right now who’s dressed as formally as I am as Kanaya and Rose, who are wearing a dark green dress and a pair of black jeans with a poofy shirt that looks like it belongs on a lifesized cabbage patch doll, respectively. I frown just a little and unbutton the top button- not the collar, though, because I’m not a schmuck, and I never had that buttoned in the first place.

“Yeah… I’m starting to feel just a little overdressed. If Jane comes out of her room in everyday clothes I might have to leave early on account of I-way-overestimated-how-formal-Jane-was-expecting-us-to-dress.” I reply, fiddling with a loose string on the side of my jeans.

“Aw, I’m sure Janey’ll come out in somethin’ that puts all of us but you and Kan’ and Rose to shame.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone shorten Kanaya’s name to Kan before.

“So,” I’ve switched from fiddling with loose strings to rolling up my sleeves. “Did you like the coffee?” 

Jake looks puzzled for a moment, and then it hits him and he pulls a face that tells me everything I need to know, making me genuinely laugh a little.

“I take it that’s a no, then.”

“I don’t drink coffee! I’m much more a tea person but you didn’t have any tea options!” Jake looks like he’s blushing a little. “I tried to drink it! But I threw it away outside my first class…”

“If you weren’t gonna drink it then why’d you even order it, dude? You wasted that coffee.”

“I only stopped by to see Jane and give her a gift! I didn’t expect for her to not be working the counter, and then I didn’t wanna walk in and walk right back out, so I just ordered something that I figured might taste sorta okay!”

“Well, obviously it didn’t taste sorta okay.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but we’re interrupted when a door opens down the hall and all our heads turn to watch Jane walk out of her room. She was wearing a light blue dress that went down to her knees and a white sweater over the top part- probably for the best that my white sweater is fucked up, then. It’s not like she looked like she was about to go eat dinner with a celebrity, but she wasn’t dressed casually. Feferi came out after, carrying a makeup bag at her side. It’s not entirely surprising Fef did Jane’s makeup- while Jane has an okay grasp on eyeliner, she’s not so great with other makeup. Feferi, on the other hand, has a makeup channel on Youtube where she does extravagant makeup art.

Roxy whistled as Jane walked over to us and sat down in an armchair, but the rest of us were silent.

“Hey! Sorry for the wait, I couldn’t figure out what to pair with this dress.” She said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

I mean, Jake wasn’t wrong. Comparatively, everybody but me, Rose, Kanaya, and Jane looked underdressed for the occasion. Which made me feel a lot better about the fact that compared to everyone other than us four, I was noticeably overdressed.

They say that everybody has their strengths. If my strength is reading people, Jane’s strength is keeping people entertained. I mean, sure, she was keeping the small group entertained by pulling out Life and Monopoly and Uno, but she certainly kept us entertained for a while.

It was a little while before I had to leave, but my class schedule was the same regardless of whose birthday it may have been the day before, so I had to excuse myself around 10:00. I said goodbye to Jane and Rox’ and the rest of the group huddled around the table, and then I put my cards in the discard pile and left.

I stood outside the apartment building for a minute, breathing in the damp air. It must’ve rained while we were inside, ‘cause the grass is damp, but I don’t think I heard it.

What I do hear now, though, is the sound of footsteps and a door opening behind me. I swivel, and there’s Jake.

“Oh, hey Jake. Are you leaving, too?” I ask, watching his face.

“Oh- no, no, I’m goin’ back up in just a hot second here! I just uh-” Jake stops and looks like he’s physically collecting himself. “I ran down here ‘cause, uh, you seem like a pretty cool fellow!”

I keep my eyes focused dead on him as I speak, though he can’t see them through my shades.

“I think you’re pretty neat, too, Jake.” What I’m thinking, though, while I say that, is that I think he’s surprisingly cute and that his weird vocabulary makes me even more attracted to him.

“So, uh, would you maybe like to see me sometime soon? Outside of larger groups, I mean, and uh… Away from your work, of course, because I would doubt you’d be enthralled with the idea of, uh, meeting somebody casually at your work and all-” I cut him off to help him cut to the chase, though I think it’s obvious where he’s going with this.

“Are you asking me to meet you casually and separately, just the two of us, somewhere? Like, on a date, Jake?”

“Yes, I am. Would you maybe like to get lunch or something with me sometime?” He’s clearly flustered and I think he’s about to fall over himself trying to ask me out.

“That would be nice, I think. Can I get your number, Jake?”

I was expecting him to just take out his phone and tell me it so I could put it in mine, but instead, he produced a slip of paper with ten digits listed on it.

“How long have you had this in your pocket?” I asked, looking up from his hand to his face.

“A couple hours now. I went to the bathroom when we started playing Life and then I just grabbed a paper from Jane’s office and wrote my number on it so I could just. Hand you my number.”

“... Can I ask why? I mean, we have phones, and Jane probably won’t care, but why even-”

“My hands have been shaking since I started running down the stairs, and I really don’t want to have to show you how bad I am at holding my phone.”

“Alright Jake, that’s fair. I can get behind that. I’ll put you in my phone on the way there and text you, a’ight? You get back on up to Jane and them before they send out a search party or somethin’.”

Jake ran back in and bolted up the stairs while I headed off to Dave and Karkat’s apartment, sending Jake a quick text to let him know my number.


End file.
